


Bad Influence

by boombangbing



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 10:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombangbing/pseuds/boombangbing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Quantico, she is a very bad influence. A prequel thing to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/158345">Over Here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Influence

On her first day of occupational training, Olivia isn't nervous. The other recruits are, and they whisper nervously back and forth to each other; she just pulls her hair back into a loose knot and stands up straighter.

Admittedly, she does get some butterflies in her stomach when Captain Francis introduces himself as their instructor, but she still meets his gaze.

Later, she'll swear to the fact that his eyes lingered on her.

*

“Captain Francis?” She stands with her tray of suspiciously coloured food in front of Francis' table in the cafeteria. Her fellows recruits (she doesn't call them her friends, because _really_ ) hiss at her that she can't just go talk to him, he's an _instructor_. 'He's just a guy,' she tells them, smirking.

“Call me Charlie,” he says, and nods to the empty chair across the table from him. She glances behind her and sticks out her tongue before taking the seat gracefully.

“I thought we were big on chain of command and respect for authority and all that good stuff here? That's what they taught us at basic training.”

Captain Francis – Charlie – shrugs. “What can I say,” he says. “I'm a maverick.”

She grins and he returns the smile, then goes back to his food. “You were FBI, right? I guess things were different back then.”

He nods. “I took the conversion course. And it wasn't that long ago, Cadet Dunham.”

“Olivia,” she corrects.

“Olivia,” he repeats. “Are you done showing off to your friends yet?”

She leans forward and brushes her fingers against his hand. “I haven't even begun, Charlie.”

*

“You all did pretty well on your first test.” Charlie scrolls through his electronic pad as he paces in front of the cadets. It was laughably easy, one of those virtual reality shooting games where you shoot attackers as they come at you. Olivia dispatched ten clean shots to the head.

“There were a couple of problems, though.” He comes to a stop in front of her. “Toddlers aren't assailants, Cadet Dunham.”

She clasps her hands behind her back and pushes her chest out. “But what if they're sleeper agents?” she asks, adding 'sir' as an afterthought.

There's a ripple of laughter.

“For the purposes of this exercise,” he replies, “you can assume that they're not. Also, dogs and grandmothers.”

“Well, you would say that, if you were part of the conspiracy.”

“Uh huh.” He narrows his eyes before moving to the next cadet in line.

After the lesson, she hangs back. Everyone else is filing out, and the last few stragglers pause, watching as she taps Charlie on the shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Sir,” she says, and shakes her loose hair. “I think it would be in my best interest to have some... one-on-one tutoring.”

He raises an eyebrow and looks around her. “Is there something you want?” he asks the stragglers, and they hurry from the room. Then he focuses on Olivia again. “You don't need any tutoring. Just stop shooting children.”

“But,” she says, and she touches his arm to stop him from going back to packing his bag. “Sometimes I can't tell the difference. I'm a perfect shot, I know that – I can show you my medals – but the procedures are different. I need someone to teach me how to be a soldier. I need help.”

He looks at her hand on his arm, but doesn't move it. “You know that I don't believe a word of your bullshit, right?”

“I don't know _what_ you mean,” she says, and rubs his arm, just a little.

“I'm married,” he tells her, and he still doesn't move her hand.

“Well, that's an awful shame, sir.”

He leans in, just barely, and says, “I bet you say that to all the captains.” His voice is a low growl; it makes her toes curl in her boots.

“Not all of them,” she replies.

*

“Are you stalking me?” Charlie asks as she slides into the seat next to him at the bar. “'Cause I've seen _Fatal Attraction_.”

She tilts her head to the side, and waves to catch the attention of the bartender. “Do you have a bunny?”

He smiles around the mouth of his beer bottle. “I have a Labrador.”

“I don't think a Labrador would fit into a pot.”

“Then I guess I don't have anything to worry about.” He rubs a hand over his face, and she can tell from the way that his shoulders are moving that he's laughing.

When the bartender gets to them, she tells him, “Same again for him, lemonade for me.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk? Seriously, what do you want, Olivia?”

“My whole world doesn't revolve around you. I'm here with friends.” She isn't lying. Some of the girls in her class invited her out, and her mom told her that she should make friends. She doesn't disagree with the sentiment, just the company, but she supposes that her mom's right: at the very least they're contacts. They could be useful, one day.

“So why aren't you with them?”

“Well, I just saw you over here, all alone and sad looking, and my mom told me to be nice to people. You have a very suspicious nature.”

(This is clearly not what her mother meant, though. In fact, when Olivia had told her there was a guy she liked, her mom had said, “Is he your superior?”

“Why would you say that?” Olivia had asked.

Her mother had handed her another sheet to fold. “Because they always are, sweetheart.”)

“Sorry,” he says. “It's a character flaw.”

“It's okay, we all have them.”

He accepts the new beer bottle from the bartender. “And what's yours?”

She turns on her stool and hooks her feet on the bottom rung of his. “I'm just too delightful.”

He rolls his eyes, but he doesn't disagree.

*

For Olivia's twenty first birthday, Rachel skips school and they spend the day in Washington. Rachel complains that it's too dull and that they should go to New York and shop, and truthfully Olivia feels the same way, but she's an actual recognised adult now, she has to be responsible. As responsible as she can be while letting her little sister cut class. Plus, she tells Rachel, New York is five hours from Virginia, and 'it's my birthday, so shut up'.

Rachel wants to talk about Charlie; is he hot, does she _like_ like him, have they done it, are they going to?

“Yes, he's hot. And you are too young to talk about the rest of that.”

“I'm fifteen, Olive!”

Olivia steps out of the changing room and scrutinises herself in the mirror. “Barely. And anyway, he's married.” The dress looks amazing on her: it's black and tight and her legs looks ridiculous in it. It's way overpriced, but that's what birthday money from grandparents are for.

“Pfft, like you care about that.” Rachel continues to munch on her bag of chips. The sales lady looks irritably at them, but Olivia flashed them her cadet badge when they came in, and they're too stupid to know the difference.

“I do too care,” Olivia shoots back. She smooths her hands down the dress. She feels beautiful. More to the point, she feels dangerous. “I'm definitely getting this.”

Later, in her tiny apartment, she looks at the dress hanging on the kitchen door. It cost more than a month's rent. It seems sacrilegious to just let it languish in this cockroach-infested place. She grabs her cell.

>   
> **To: Charlie Francis  
>  19:23  
> WISH ME A HAPPY BIRTHDAY**   
> 

  


>   
> **From: Charlie Francis  
>  19:46  
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STALKER**   
> 

She smiles up at her dress, and dials his number.

“Hey,” he says.

“I'm twenty one,” she tells him.

“Congratulations.”

“And I have nothing to do. Are you at home?”

There's a pause, but she knows he's still there, because she can hear him breathing. Finally, he says, “No, I'm still at work.”

“It seems sad that I'm going to be spending my first night as a twenty one year old alone,” she says.

He sighs. “Where do you wanna go?”

-

He buys her popcorn at the cinema, and she lays her hand over her heart. “Oh, you really shouldn't have.”

“Okay,” he says, and takes the tub back.

“Hey!” She reaches for it, tripping on the grimy carpet in the hall outside the screen. She falls into him and he catches her, her body pressed against his side. His hands tighten around her forearms, and there's really nowhere for him to look but down at her.

“That's a very fancy dress for a dive like this,” he comments. She raises an eyebrow and crosses an arm over her chest. He doesn't even have the good grace to blush.

“Maybe everyone else isn't dressed up enough, ever think of that?” She rights herself and takes the popcorn back. Charlie shakes his head and holds out the crook of his arm.

“May I escort you to the show, my lady?”

-

“I've wanted to see this movie for months, but Rachel wouldn't come with me,” Olivia whispers.

“Rachel?”

Between them they're already three quarters of the way through the tub of popcorn, and the film hasn't even begun. Every now and then their hands brush, and it doesn't make her feel fluttery any more.

She turns towards him; their faces are mere inches apart. He looks at her lips and then back up at her eyes. “My sister. She's fifteen. She's not really into cannibals.”

“She's young,” he reassures.

“I know, I know.” She settles back into her seat as the lights go down. “You know, it's such a shame that Hopkins didn't come back for the sequel. Although Tim Roth has got that whole growly tough guy thing I like going on.”

In the dark, she can just make out Charlie turning back to look at her.

“What?” she says, and covers her smile with a mouthful of popcorn.

“Nothin'”

-

“Hungry?” she asks afterwards. They're out of the cinema, on the street, and somehow they've arranged themselves with her under his arm, turned into his jacket against the cold.

“No,” he says emphatically. “We just-- no.”

“I am,” she says. She can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest against her face.

“You creep me out, Liv,” he murmurs.

-

Over pizza, he tells her about his family, his mother back in Brooklyn, and his wife.

“Cathy,” he says. “We're having some problems. Which you probably worked out since it's nearly midnight and I'm here with you.”

The waitress brings over Olivia's milkshade, with two straws. Olivia smiles over the edge of the glass at Charlie.

“Is that why you're an instructor? Because you really don't seem to be that into it.”

He shrugs. “Kinda. Anyway, any good stalker would already know that about me. Why don't you tell me something that I don't know about you?”

“I'm really not the interesting,” she says, swirling her straw. “I spent the first half of my childhood on an army base.”

Charlie bumps his foot into hers. “I already know that, I read your file. Come on, bunny-boiler, there's gotta be something interesting about you.” He bites his lower lip and raises his eyebrows. He's easily as evil as he accuses her of being.

“You read my file?” She smiles at how his foot lingers against her leg. “Okay, how about... I can play the oboe: I'm pretty good, I played a few concerts. I lost my virginity when I was fifteen. I wanted to be a ballerina when I was four. And...” She leans in and motions to him with her fingers. He watches her for a second before placing his elbows on the table and sliding forward. “When I was nine, I killed my stepfather.”

He doesn't say anything. Then, he blinks twice, slowly. “Excuse me?”

“One clean shot to the head,” she tells him. She mimics a gun with her finger. _Blam_.

“That wasn't in your file,” he says carefully.

“My dad's Army buddies helped us out.” She shrugs. This is first time she's ever told anyone; not even Rachel knows. In fact, Olivia not sure that Rachel's aware that they ever had a stepfather. “You told me to tell you something you didn't already know.”

“Okay,” he says. His foot falls away from her leg, and he leans back. “Can I ask why?”

“He beat my mom. I couldn't listen to the sounds any more. It's no big deal, really.”

“God, you really are that chick from _Fatal Attraction_. Do you tell all your dates this delightful story?”

“Only the ones I really like.” She reaches across the table and lays her hand over his. “Don't pretend like you're freaked out.”

His eyes are dark; she likes that. She likes a lot of things about him, not least that he hasn't once flinched, about anything. He looks at her through his eyelashes. “You think I'm not?”

She leans further forward, until the edge of the table presses against her stomach. Charlie turns his hand over under hers; their palms meet. “I don't think anything freaks you out, Charlie.”

*

Her first honest to God, not-a-training-exercise mission doesn't go so well. Actually, it goes somewhat horrifically.

Her and a select few of her class are flown out to Haven, Maine, to investigate the possible importation of drugs at the docks. It's a low risk thing, just some footwork and maybe a search and seizure or two. Real police work, their supervisor says. Boring and pedestrian, Olivia thinks, but it's a start. Charlie wishes the class luck, and she says, “Luck's got nothing to do with it.”

Her classmates roll their eyes; it's an open secret on campus that Olivia and Charlie are having an affair, or at least that's what her classmates think. People used talk behind their hands about it, but now they're just spiteful. Special favours, they mutter irritably. Olivia doesn't let it affect her.

They spend their first day in Haven interviewing suspects. Olivia gets partnered with a 'more experienced' agent, David. He thinks he's the shit, and he dominates all the interviews. They make no progress.

After a fitful night's sleep in a motel, they set off with warrants to search boats at the dock. The sky is dark, almost black, at ten in the morning, but the weather forecast on the radio calls for sun all day.

“This isn't right,” she says.

“It's just a storm. Scared of the dark, _Livvy_?” David asks. He drives, ten miles over the speed limit, towards the docks.

“Fuck you, _Davey_ ,” she shoots back, and looks out the window. Lightning slashes across the dark, as if momentarily tearing the sky open. “Something's wrong, we need to-”

She doesn't get to finish her thought; the ground shudders, and David spins the steering wheel around. The car careens a one-eighty, slamming Olivia into the car door. She grips the headrest of her seat and sees, briefly as the car swings away from it, a crater a mile wide in the road.

“What the fuck?” David yells.

“It's a breach,” she yells back, and grabs the two way radio. Mashing the buttons does nothing: the line is dead. “Shit! They've cut communication, they're gonna quarantine.”

The music playing on the car radio slurs drunkenly. Outside, the sky warps – purple, green, black – and the car rocks from side to side. She rolls her window down a couple of inches; it's almost unbearable, the wind howls around the car, and tries to pry her fingers from their grip on the window frame. Through narrowed eyes, she sees the crack in the road spreading out behind them.

“Go right,” she shouts. “Turn right!”

David veers off the road, and the car slams into a fence, through someone's backyard, and then another and another. Under their wheels, flowers, decorative gnomes, birdbaths are all crushed.

“The sky's lighter up ahead.” She points to where the dark sky meets the blue. “We need to get over there.”

The car lurches back onto the main road, David floors the accelerator, hurtling them towards the light...

They crash. The impact snaps Olivia's head back and then forward into the dashboard, front teeth meeting her top lip. In front of them, there's a line of abandoned cars blocking the way as far as she can see.

She spits blood. “David, come on.”

His head is bleeding where it connected with the steering wheel, and he stumbles into her when she pulls him from the car. “We have to go,” she shouts, and she's not sure that he really registers it, but he follows her anyway.

She tries to hold his hand as they run, but it's slippery with blood, and the blood's not hers. She shouts encouragements instead, looking back every now and then to make sure he's keeping up.

They're close, another five minutes running, she estimates. Her face throbs, but she can make it. A couple of feet away, David falls, she can hear his cry of pain better as the wind subsides closer to the blue sky. She sets her jaw and turns back to help him – she really does – but the ground is splitting open, a jagged line separating them. He shouts her name. The gap is maybe forty inches wide: she could make it, but judging by the rate of its expansion, she wouldn't make it back. David shouts her name again.

She doesn't even tell him she's sorry. She just turns and runs.

-

The next few hours are a blur. She's picked up by a Jeep with blacked out windows, there are forms to sign (“Non-disclosure, you know what that means, don't you? Do you understand? Do you?”), there are sirens and colonels shouting orders, there's a girl from her class screaming in the back of an ambulance.

A paramedic quickly patches up her lip – good enough until she gets to a hospital, he says – and leaves her sitting on bench with a blanket around her shoulders. She can't sit in an ambulance, there are none available.

There's a lot of sound: shouting, screaming, a high-pitched whistle that might be the wind or might be in her own head. She shuts it out, pressing her hands to her face. She can feel a rough swollen lump where her lip is supposed to be, tastes, still, the copper of her blood.

“...Olivia? Liv? _Liv_?” The pressure brings her back, hands against her knees. She opens her eyes to find Charlie kneeling on the ground in front of her. His lips look dry and broken, his chest is rising and falling erratically like he's been running.

He touches her lip, a feather light brush of fingertips on the mess of her face. Then he pitches forward and wraps his arms around her. The movement shakes her back to life.

“I didn't know you cared,” she murmurs against his shoulder.

“Just let me be glad you're alive for one minute before you ruin it,” he growls back.

-

He takes her to his car, yet another big black Jeep. “She's coming with me,” he shouts at the soldiers who try to stop them, flashing his badge.

“Wasn't I supposed to stay back there, until... until...” She shakes her head. She can't remember precisely what they told her, just the words _stay here_. “That's what I was told.”

“I sorted it out.”

“How?”

Charlie keeps his eyes on the road, and she can't help but watch it too. The sky is clear and still bright at five in the afternoon, but the knot in her stomach hasn't loosened any yet. “I pulled rank on a shit load of people, and called in some favours.”

“Why?”

For a minute he doesn't respond. Then: “You're a very bad influence, Olivia Dunham.”

That doesn't exactly answer her question, but she lets it lie.

They drive a dozen miles before she speaks again. This is the first anomaly she's seen – experienced – for herself. She doesn't know how to file it away in her head. “The ground just split open. Just... like that, like ripping a packet of chips open.” She lets out a breath out. “I was with someone, he was hurt worse than me. He couldn't keep up. I could have got back to him, but we both would have died.” The idea of amber has always terrified her.

Charlie looks at her as they slow at a red light.

“We both would have died.” she repeats. “I left him.”

Charlie nods. The traffic light turns green and he turns back to the road. “Good. I guess luck really didn't have anything to do with it.”

Olivia's laugh is ragged and ugly, a sharp pain in her chest (maybe she broke some ribs, too?), but Charlie's face still relaxes.

“You'll be okay,” he says.

*

This is what Charlie says to her a week later, at her front door: “You look like shit.”

“So do you,” she offers, opening the door wider to let him pass by. “What do you want?”

She's still in her sweats: she'd been working out in front of the TV (her chest burns with the effort, but it's a good burn), and the sweat is drying sticky underneath her t-shirt. Charlie watches the muted workout video with interest. “This is quite arousing.”

She cuffs him on the back of the head and turns the television off. “What's up?”

He rakes a hand through his hair. “I've been fired. Well. Transferred. My conduct was... inappropriate, apparently.”

“Oh,” she says. “I'm sorry.”

He shrugs. “Also, Cathy left me.” There's a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“That sucks.” Belatedly, she remembers the front door, and turns to close it. When she turns back, she swears Charlie is standing closer than he was before.

He pulls his jacket off and tosses it onto her couch. “Yeah. I told her I was sort of having an affair, she informed me she was definitely having one. We filed for divorce yesterday.”

“Wow, so your whole life has been ruined, pretty much.”

“Pretty much,” he echoes.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “So why do you look so happy?”

He rolls his eyes towards the ceiling. “You're a bad influence, Olivia Dunham.”

Again, this isn't really an answer. “The worst,” she agrees.

He sits on the arm of her couch, legs spread. “I stole some of my boss's coffee supply before I left. Wanna have some?”

She crosses the short distance between them, stepping between his legs, and presses her lips to his cheek. “Now you're talking.”


End file.
